Posted
by
timothy
on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @03:35PM
from the what's-this-itunes-thing dept.

sinclair44 writes "Apple has released iTunes 4.6. The new version 'includes support for playing your music wirelessly using AirPort Express with AirTunes. It also includes a number of other minor enhancements.' The update is also available in Mac OS X's Software Update."

They are probably checking for the non-standard id3 tag info which lists the account it was purchased under. The old version of Hymn didn't put that in, but the new one does.

The people still able to play are probably playing files de-drm'd with the older version. If you grab the new version of Hymn, just try ripping out the portion of code that inserts that tag in the new file and I bet it will work just fine.

I've purchased much more music since Hymn came out because now I can play it on my linux box at work without having to burn cd's or do a lossy->lossy conversion.

I can confirm this. I have some songs where I stripped the DRM with an older version of Hymn, and they work fine. Songs that I stripped with the newer version of Hymn however, don't work.

I'm not quite sure why Apple did this. The reason the new version of Hymn leaves all the tags in is to discourage piracy, but I imagine the next version will probably revert to stripping all tags out. It seems like Apple is not only going to be pissing off a lot of people by doing this, but they're also going to be making piracy easier in the long term.

My guess is that in order to keep the RIAA happy, Apple has to "fix" FairPlay anytime a drm-breaking scheme comes up. No matter that what you said makes perfect sense, you have to remember we are talking RIAA here, and making sense doesn't seem to be in their playbook.

Simply run the HYMN de-DRM'd files through a tag remover such as tgutf, and "poof!"... you're good to go. Of course, you'll have to add whatever tags you use back into the file, but at least iTunes will now play them.

as an addendum, with the changes to the limitations intrudoced with iTunes 4.5, (allowing 5 computers) there really is little legitimate reason to use Hymn to play music on extra iTunes... on the other hand, the arguably legitimate uses for Hymn, to play the aac tracks on devices other than an iPod and iTunes, they will continue to be able to play the Hymned tracks.

There is plenty of reason to still use hymn. The iTMS terms of service give Apple the right to change the rules as to how you can use the music you have purchased, at any time, for any reason, and you have no recourse. How safe would you feel if Apple stopped being just a flack for the record companies and was bought by a record company? That record company could decide that you ought to start paying a subscription fee in order to continue to access your music... and according the terms of service you ag

Temporary fix:Open the Hymn'ed song in a hex editor.. Look for "geID" or something with "ID" as the last two characters there. I'm not sure if it's always the same or not. Anyway, change this to "xxID" and save it. Then try the file in iTunes again.

Or wait for a new Hymn to remove the ID entirely.

Or just don't install 4.6. It doesn't add a whole heck of a lot of functionality except for compatibility with that new wireless access point/stereo output thing they've got coming out.

Frankly, this was an *extremely* stupid move by Apple. What's the point? Look, people can crack the DRM, okay. But the programs tried to be nice by leaving the ID in there. The point was to enable fair use, not to enable file sharing. By leaving the ID in there, it makes it extremely easy to figure out who illegally shared their purchased music. People using it for fair use purposes wouldn't be sharing the music, and so they have no worries about the ID being there or not.

This "fix" by Apple just makes it HARDER for them to actually catch anybody sharing music. Because now a new version will be created to remove the ID as well, and thus make files that are indistinguishable from normally ripped and encoded ones. Now somebody shares music, and there's no way to track them down. How STUPID can Apple be? Seriously? This is just freakin' preposterous.

Frankly, this was an *extremely* stupid move by Apple. What's the point?

Good relations with the RIAA. iTMS dies without the RIAA. Period, end of story. If Apple doesn't at least play by a basic set of rules, the RIAA will roll up and move to another service even more restrictive and iTMS dies.

So which would you rather? Having to remove a tag, or having no iTMS to begin with?

So which would you rather? Having to remove a tag, or having no iTMS to begin with?

Frankly, I don't give a shit whether the iTMS is there or not. If they don't want to sell music to me online, then I'll simply get it from P2P systems like I did before.

Here's the deal. The RIAA has no leverage power. Yes, they have the music, but I, the customer, have the cash. If they don't want to sell to me, fuck 'em. I'll obtain my music some other way. If they try to make a more restrictive service, fuck 'em, I'll ei

I was quite relieved to see this move on Apple's part. It's not in *their* best interests but it's certainly in the best interests of hymn users because it will force them to remove the ID tag. The notion of leaving the ID in the hymn'ed file was foolish and reckless -- a horrible disservice. If you had a hymn'ed file in your library and had enabled iTunes sharing then somebody could use something like Leechster to copy that file without your consent. If that person then shared the file to Kazaa or what

It's a problem for anybody who uses iTunes sharing on a network where they don't control all of the machines on the local subnet. (This, by the way, is the situation where iTunes sharing becomes most interesting -- it's fun to find out what random people listen to!) This might not include "most people" but it's a lot of people, students in particular, and it's pretty nasty to put them in legal jeopardy just because they want to exercise their fair use rights.

As some others have postulated, it does seem that tracks 'cleaned' with the old version of hYmn (playfair), do still playback fine.Tracks processed with recent versions of hYmn don't play, and display a message saying the machine isn't authorized to play the track, even though the original track is authorized to play on that machine, and the original track continues to play fine.Considering that the hex edit hack offered in another post here works, it seems that the file is just looking for that non standar

Is there any word on what other changes have been made? Aside from AirTunes, everything else on their site matches the 4.5 feature set. Plus, it was a previous 'minor enhancement' that changed the licensing terms of already-purchased music via the iTMS (to the significant apprehension of many people).

Plus, it was a previous 'minor enhancement' that changed the licensing terms of already-purchased music via the iTMS (to the significant apprehension of many people).

It might be interesting to note that the changes in the licensing terms are only for the newly bought songs in 4.5, i.e. for the songs you already purchased before upgrading to 4.5, the old terms still apply.

That aside, nothing changes in the licensing terms from iTunes 4.5 to 4.6.

It might be interesting to note that the changes in the licensing terms are only for the newly bought songs in 4.5, i.e. for the songs you already purchased before upgrading to 4.5, the old terms still apply.

So long as you continued to use the old version. If you upgraded to 4.5, the new restrictions apply to all songs purchased.

The mark was under 50 GB; I'm not sure where it was, but it was related to the number of tracks, not the size of the library. When iTunes 4.5 came out, my library on my home machine was 42 GB and 11,000+ tracks. I had the problem.

It had to do with sharing large libraries over a network. Different people reported problems at different sizes (size and number of tracks). There were work-arounds by limiting the number of playlists shared but some had reverted to 4.2 instead.

I can confirm that iTunes does in fact fix the 6000+ track bug with sharing. Also, it appears that only the machine hosting the library has to be updated to fix the bug.

In my own testing, I found that connecting to a iTunes 4.6 shared song library of 13000+ tracks over my 100mb LAN from a machine running iTunes 4.5 or 4.6 takes about 10 seconds. Connecting to the same shared library over standard (11mb) Airport takes about 13 seconds.

I'm curious to see how AirTunes works with multiple speaker sets. If I can pump the same playlist to the stereo in my front room, my bedroom, my living room and the one outside, then Apple has just sold 4 Airport Express boxes. The cost of four will be much less than the cost (dollars+personal time) of running all that wiring and getting the speaker sets to all work well.

From what I've read you'll be able to stream to each of them, but not at the same time. If what I've read is correct then the audio output will only be sent one place at a time... which includes the host computer, so if you stream to a stereo, you won't have speakers working on the computer at that time.

That's the way I read it as well, but I was (am) hoping to see an option for multiple sets. The ability to pump to multiple room sets would make it considerably more valuable to me.

As it is now, I probably won't buy one. I've got an iPod with a dock wired to the MD input on my stereo. Not much improvement to have to walk back to the iMac just to switch playlists. No, I haven't forgotten the wireless components, it's just not quite what I need.

No, AirPort Express only allows you to broadcast on one set of speakers (one AirPort Express station). AirPort Express can broadcast any audio out from iTunes. It works by compressing whatever audio is coming from iTunes using the Apple Lossless Codec and sends it to the station where the "stream" is decompressed, thus no audio degradation is incurred.

In case you haven't noticed it, the new iTunes has support for trailers [apple.com], an although this is just a small departure from their current feature set, I bet they are just fine tuning the backend technology to support a full video on-demand service. In a few months, you'll be using iTunes to buy a movie for $9.99 and stream it to your Airport Express II to watch it in your own home theatre. I can't wait.
Originally posted here [blogspot.com].

Karaoke! To me it would be awesome if you could turn the music you bouth from iTMS into karoke(ie have 2 seperate tracks when you d/l, a normal AAC track and a track with no audio and some type of lyrics file. You could assign a video to the song or just use the visualizer in iTunes to stream to your tv. It would be a lot of fun, plus I would be that people would probably buy more music when they are drunk and high on karaoke!

Check out the squeezebox with it's synchronize feature. You can put a wireless box, a set of powered speakers in a remote room. It can be synched to play the same music as another room. It's more money than AirTunes but the features of the squeezebox are kick ass. It's totally changed the way I listen to my music.

Just read a post on the Apple Support forums from an Apple Employee who says that it will be possible to send different streams to different AE boxes under Panther by starting multiple instances of iTunes under fast user switching and letting each one stream to a seperate box (assuming your bandwidth can take it). Sounds pretty cool to me.

Last time I tried to fast-user-switch iTunes wouldn't run, claiming "Another user is running iTunes, please ask them to close it" or something similar to that. Is that still true or did some update sneak in multi-user iTunes support without me noticing =(

The easiest way to accomplish this is analog: just hook up a wireless speaker system to your computer, then put receivers in each room. Last time I checked 900MHz was a popular frequency, but there might be 2.4GHz models available by now.
Google found this... [amphony.com]

Let's see... iTunes on XP.
- title bar is no different to iTunes 4.5
- no options if you right click the title bar
- app is only minimised to the task bar
- nothing to keep it on top of other windows
- no option to "Make programs recognize iTunes as WinAmp"
methinks bbuchs is having a lend of us... or something.

Oh great, iTunes 4.6 is out, but now Apple are having problems fulfilling orders for the Airport Express units that make use of the new features. I ordered 2 on Monday (from the UK Apple Store) with an estimated ship time of 3 days. Received an email this morning telling me that it's going to be mid-July before they will be available.

Anyone know a reason why? Too many orders? Problems with the unit? Announced too early?

Weird, because I went to an actual physical Apple Store in Santa Monica, on monday, and they told me that they weren't being released until July. Sounds like you're the victim of an intercontinental screw-up.

Just feel lucky you can even order one. Here in Canada Apple updated their website to announce the AirPort Express, with the addded disclaimer that it's availability is subject to regulatory approval here in Canada.

I'm already running an AirPort Extreme base station, but the added ability to stream digital music to my home theatre system and the ability to have a portable wireless base station I can take with me while travelling makes the AirPort Express a pretty u

I look forward to having an AirPort Express to try this with, not so much to play music directly as to have a chance to reverse engineer the broadcast protocol. Apple don't seem to have published much about the protocol to be used to send music from a Mac to the Express but I can imagine that lots of people are looking forward to buying a number of the AirPort Express hardware units for distributing audio and there is almost certainly another set of people who want to know how to use iTunes 4.6 to stream audio to other computers.

Anyhow, one really cool feature that it seems to add for that AirTunes stuff is the ability to 'push' music upwards, rather than just pull down. This will allow one to control remote devices (what music is playing). Now I just can't wait to get my hands on an (Australian) AirPort Express [apple.com.au] device to reverse it. I can already think of a tonne of applications for this.

A friend of mine is an Apple Sales Consultant - he's downloaded the presentation from Apple's consultant website and provided the two following tidbits of info:

First, the iTunes program is re-encoding everything into Apple Lossless, then sending that wirelessly to the Airport Express station. So if you want to get a head start, start reverse-engineering that.

Even when that's done, there's still one other small problem; apparently Apple is encrypting the music streams sent to said Airport Express stations.

He said the presentation he downloaded wasn't particularly clear on either of these two points so I could be wrong here, but it sounds very plausible to me.

would be the ability to press a button in any app and have the track change(well, kind of how the volume up/volume down/brightness up/down works on the iBook), provided the app currently being used doesn't use the button. I know you can re-map keys, and you can script iTunes rather easily via applescript, but is there a way to associate a key with an applescript? Could save a lot of time flipping through windows.

You should easily be able to do this. You can map some (maybe all) of the function keys to do anything you want. So, you could conceivably write an AppleScript to do what you wanted and then map the function key to it.

Butler does this (actually, it is a 2 key combination). There are also apps that allow you to assign keys to scripts if you want to code your own. Check out macosxhints.com for tons of information on Butler (including a handy config guide!) and assigning keys.

Get your hands on a bluetooth enabled cellphone like the Sony Ericsson line and you can use Salling Clicker [salling.com] to change the iTunes album, song, volume, and most other things too. It will pause iTunes when you receive or make a call and can be set up to pause when the bluetooth device is out of proximity (ie when you leave). Comes with plenty of default scripts and is extensible with AppleScript. Seems like the prefect combination of devices

This is false. Apple announced a 'small profit' on the iTMS. Yes, that includes costs. Profit is AFTER costs. This rumor came up because one 'journalist' (or 'analyst' or whatever) posted something that said 'I don't see how they can be profitable' and then another one posted 'this business model couldn't possibly be profitable' and another one posted 'the iTunes Music Service can't be profitable' and then, finally, that turned into 'they

To test it, I had found an artist that had just one track, changed the info so that it was part of a compilation and then checked my list of all artists to see if that artist was still there, which it was. So I thought they had removed this feature.

Turns out, you need to reload iTunes for the all artists list to be updated. So it would seem there is a bug in their bug^Wfeature.

If you're running 10.3, there's a control panel that allows you to map keyboard functions systemwide. I think you should be able to map the Function keys to invoke APplescripts fairly easily with that.

In England, how do you deal with things that are sometimes treated as collective nouns and sometimes aren't? And isn't there a big grey area? (Just call me a grammar geek.)

In American English:

The country is one of only three with laws prohibiting pet ferrets.

The country is in mourning today.

Clearly the second example uses 'country' as a collective noun. (It *could* be a metaphor instead, anthropomorphizing the country, but that's not what it conveys.) You could substitute the word 'class' or 'comp